As a school counselor I spend a significant part of each day working with students who are struggling academically. There are many reasons why a student may struggle: homework completion, stress at home, poor sleep habits, attention deficits, anxiety, or test taking. Many of these factors are affected by forces beyond the walls of our school, but that doesn’t mean as educators we can’t help students overcome these barriers.
One place that we can start whether you are a teacher, social worker, dean, administrator or counselor is with test taking. Test taking can be one of the most stressful parts of a student’s day. A student may sit attentively in class every day, take notes, and complete their homework but when test day comes around their minds go blank. Parent’s realize this as well and will often site poor test taking as a major concern. So what can we do as educators to help our students overcome this test anxiety?
When looking for solutions within our control, we must look at the test instruments themselves. Tests should be closely aligned with our classroom, both in content and form. Students should always be aware of the material that will be on a test. Exams should not be used as a gotcha moment, but students should be able to prepare for exactly what will be an assessment. Classroom review and study guides should become a staple of our instruction. Each activity leading up to an exam should be directly linked to an item on the exam, not because we are teaching to the test but because our tests are measuring what students need to know. If a test item isn’t aligned with what has been taught, why is that item on the exam?
In that same vein, tests should not only reflect the content we’ve covered in class but they should reflect the form as well. All too often students know the material but are unable to perform on an exam because the questions are phrased or formatted completely different than how they were during instruction or homework. Tests don’t need to be a place where we flex our creative muscle, but a place to truly gauge what our instruction has accomplished. Before your next exam, compare the test questions against sample problems from class. Are they similar? They don’t need to be the exact problems you did in class but they should bear some resemblance. Once again, don’t trick the students, guide them.
Another option to consider is the format of the test altogether. Who says an exam needs to be paper and pencil and not performance or task based? Naturally some subject areas will lend themselves to a performance based exam more so than others, but every subject area should be able to find a real world application for the material being covered. I challenge you to consider the real world application for the unit you are currently teaching, is there a performance task you can utilize to test if your students have mastered the concepts? Because let’s be honest, the real world rarely asks workers to take an exam but they are expected to perform every day.
Once the test has been adjusted to reflect the standards of your classroom, we can move the conversation to preparation. We must do everything we can to encourage students to prepare for their exams. Preparing can’t be an isolated event happening just the day before a test. You know that and I know that, but you’d be surprised how many students and parents don’t know that. To help students develop proactive study habits make sure you advertise your exam dates. At least a week out let your students know an exam is approaching. If possible hand out the study guide at the same time and assign small portions to be due each night. This forces the students to review gradually rather than cramming overnight.
For students who need more encouragement and a guided hand, consider using the chart at the end of this article “My Test Taking Plan”. This gives the student specific areas to write down information on upcoming tests in each subject area. When is the next test, what will be on the test, when am I going to review with my teacher. Then after the test it includes an area to schedule a follow up appoint to look at what they did well, areas for improvement and what concepts they will see again.
For many classes, this follow up after an exam is crucial. Concepts build upon each other, they don’t just go away. If our students do poorly on an exam and expect to move on with a fresh start the next unit, they are deceiving themselves. If we allow our students to move on without reviewing and re-teaching, we are fooling ourselves. Allow classroom time after each exam to cover commonly missed problems and make yourself available before/after school to work with students who may need that extra effort.
Testing can be stressful and anxiety provoking, but when we do our jobs as professional educators and design an assessment that does what we intend it to, we can ease that tension. When we give the students the tools they need to be successful, we can watch their anxiety melt away. We must put as much effort into preparing our exams as our students put into preparing for the exam.
Resource: My Test Taking Plan
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